Fire Tips: The Best Advice for College Students Who Want a Career in Publishing

Highlights from my chat with Emerson College students, plus the top tips you shared!

I had a great time speaking with Emerson College students on Tuesday. During the hour-long video call, I fielded smart and savvy questions from current Writing, Literature, and Publishing hopefuls who will be entering the workforce soon.

I recorded the session (which I’ll upload and post in a bit—the file is large), but here are the best highlights from our chat, plus some amazing gems of wisdom from all of you! Thanks so much for offering your best advice to current college students. Sharing your knowledge with future generations helps them achieve their dreams—and it’s a fantastic way to give back. ❤️‍🔥

What does "content creation" mean today?

“It's absolutely everything you could think of in terms of a message you’re creating to share with an audience, regardless of the format. It wasn't that long ago when you could just be a straight-up freelance writer who just writes (that still exists and those are amazing opportunities when they come your way). I've found that it really benefits you when you can be a content creator that has many different platforms to release on.

So, a freelancer who pitches a taste-test story for a food brand and says, ‘I can go firsthand, taste this food, record myself, I can talk about it on camera, and you will get a written piece of content, a social media post, video, and audio that you can rejigger for a podcast.’ To us as assigning editors, that’s so attractive because then you're working with only one person but you're getting so many different facets of content that you can use in many different ways. It will also help you get higher rates. You have to bake in the cost of travel, expenses, plus your editing time for any social media content. That's how you can leverage your skills so that one assignment has the rate of two or three combined.”